How to Manage Projects in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Empower Your Entire Project Organization

From Project Administration to a Purpose-Built Project System that Empowers Your Teams

Project-Driven Business Needs in the Digital Age

Are you a project-driven business, such as an engineering firm, ETO manufacturer, bio-pharma CDMO, or a construction company, trying to make Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance your single source of truth? You’re on the right track. The modern enterprise needs a powerful ERP system to streamline operations, and D365 is a fantastic foundation.

But for organizations whose core business lives and dies by the success of their projects, the native tools may not be telling the whole story. While D365 Finance provides a robust framework, it was not originally designed for the unique complexities of managing projects at scale.

As a project organization, the key question is: how much does your system truly empower your teams? This article will try to help you answer this question by exploring the level of empowerment offered by native D365 Finance and Project Operations, uncovering where its capabilities can fall short, and outlining what to look for in a purpose-built solution to bridge that gap should your organization require it.

Foundational Administration with Dynamics 365 Project Operations

The core of D365 Finance offers the Project Operations module that serves as a solid financial foundation for managing project-related work. Depending on how you deploy it, Project Operations will provide different levels of capabilities. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on the module inside D365 Finance, called Project Management & Accounting.

This module provides a set of tools that meet some basic project management needs.

This module offers several features that are essential for any project business:

• Project Types: It supports various project types, including Fixed Price, where a lump sum is billed for a specific scope of work, and Time & Material, which invoices customers based on hours and resources used. It also allows for Internal and Investment projects.
• Financial & Cost Tracking: The module helps manage labor costs, material transactions, and expenses. Project costs can be tracked against a budget, ensuring that financial data is centrally located within the ERP.
• Invoicing & Revenue Recognition: Project Operations streamlines customer invoicing and offers different methods for revenue recognition, such as the widely used “percentage of completion” method for compliance and accurate reporting.
• Timesheets & Expense Tracking: These basic functions allow employees and contractors to record their time and expenses directly in the system, providing a basic level of project data capture.

The question is: What if you could get the better functionality for your projects in D365 Finance for the same price?

What about your organization’s future needs?

In short, the Project Operations module in D365 Finance provides some core ERP functionality for projects. But what happens when your project management needs change? Project Operations has no add-ons to grow with you.

Learn your options for Project Operations vs. PlanAutomate:

The Gaps to Look for in Project Operations

While the Project Operations module in D365 Finance is a primarily a limited scheduling tool that you also have to use as your financial structure, it often falls short in some key areas for project-driven companies. For organizations that need to manage operations and financials of projects independently Project Operations leaves project managers feeling more like data administrators than strategic leaders. This is where the limitations of the system become apparent:

• Lack of a Unified System: Teams often find themselves still relying on spreadsheets and disconnected tools for detailed project operations, including estimations, work breakdown structures (WBS), advanced schedules, and risk management. This creates data silos and a fragmented view, making it nearly impossible to have a single source of truth. The result is a disempowered team that spends time reconciling data instead of collaborating.

• Reactive, Not Proactive: The native tools in Project Operations are fine for some financial record-keeping, but they typically lack real-time insights for project managers that enable them with actionable intelligence and foresight as to where the project is headed. This leaves project teams in a reactive state, spending more time firefighting problems rather than proactively managing them.

• Focus on Accounting, Not Project Management: The system does have Project Accounting that is built for accounting financial control, but not for automating and controlling the entire project lifecycle. This leads to a lot of manual administrative work, like data consolidation, reporting, and constant updates, that bogs down project professionals and prevents them from focusing on strategic outcomes.

• The “One-Size-Fits-All” Problem: D365’s general-purpose nature doesn’t fully cater to the unique governance, modeling, and operational needs of many project-driven industries. Without purpose-built functionality, companies often have to make costly and risky customizations or compromise on their processes, which can limit the team’s ability to operate efficiently.

Bridging the Gap: What to Look for in a Purpose-Built Solution for D365

When native D365 Finance and Project Operations capabilities fall short, or you want to ensure you have options as you grow, project-driven businesses need a solution that is purpose-built to extend their investment. This is where PlanAutomate can make the difference by providing a new level of empowerment.

Here are the key capabilities such a system should offer:

Introducing PlanAutomate: PlanAutomate is a project platform that delivers all of these essential capabilities. It is a purpose-built solution that extends and enhances your investment in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, helping you transform and empower your entire project organization.

Learn more

From Project Administration to Project Automation that Empowers People

While D365 Finance provides a strong financial foundation, it’s a platform that can be elevated to meet the unique needs of project-driven businesses. The right solution goes beyond basic accounting and helps you plan, execute, and govern projects with greater efficiency, predictability, and profitability.

By choosing a purpose-built project automation platform that can grow with you, you can empower your teams and ensure your business thrives.

Is your organization ready to transform project administration into project automation? Discover how PlanAutomate can help you get the most out of your Microsoft Dynamics 365 investment.